VERIFICATION ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

Advantages

Clear parameters to verifying a statement; either it can be verified empirically via experience or it is a
tautology (true by definition)

Supported by the arguments of Locke and Hume; truth and knowledge were to be known via our senses

It is not just an argument against God and his existence; both the agnostic and atheist are making
meaningless statements

Weak verification is Ayer's contribution: it states that in order to be meaningful, a statement may not be
verifiable but instead can be shown to be true within reasonable doubt

Weak verification means we can make statements about history, scientific theories and human emotion
but not religion and ethics

Disadvantages

The strong form of verification principle is too rigid, to the point that we cannot make statements about
anything without empirical observation, such as historical statements

Scientific laws become meaningless as we cannot verify it, e.g. I cannot verify gravity is constant as I
cannot be in every place at once

Swinburne argued universal statements cannot be verified so seem meaningless, yet we would all agree
'all humans are mortal'

Comparative statements are also meaningless because they are subjective, e.g. if I see a child's drawing
as more beautiful than the Mona Lisa and someone disagrees, we are both meaningless as neither can
be verified

Hick claims the verification principle may not make religious statements meaningless due to
eschatological verification: at the end of a journey (look at Hick's analogy of two travellers) the answer
would be verified in favour of believers OR verificationists

Some religious statements might be verifiable in principle, such as Biblical events

The verification principle itself is unverifiable: it isn't a tautology nor can it be proved via experience.

FALSIFICATION ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

Interesting. Falsification is when there is an attempt to show an idea is false rather than true. It is what I
would describe as a sceptical approach and has the advantages of focusing of disprove an idea.

Unfortunately it also embibes the weaknesses of any human research in sofar as the researcher is
influenced by their life experience, their beliefs and their education which affects their baiases and their
evsluation of data.

An example of this is where a person has a strong belief say in a religion what may be perceived as a
challenge to that belief becomes subject of bias